I have sold lots of AMD systems to people who are happy with them. They wanted to pay $399 for AMD, not $449 for intel. These were home PC's for web surfing and msoffice etc.. Of course by this point the PC they were replacing was suffering from windows rot and bloatware so the AMD seemed like a miracle.

I had an HTPC with an AMD chip and a mobo with on board graphics. It could not play 1080p 8gb mkv's, not even after I put in a low end discrete nvidia card in it. I dropped in a core i3 and a $99 mobo and can play 14gb 1080p mkv's without a hitch.

AMD has their nitch, but for me they have been out of the picture since the Athlon Days.

But thank god for AMD, the Athlon really woke up intel. Were it not for them we would probably still be dragging along with 80 stage pipeline power sucking behemoths.

in conclusion, I agree with all of you so please shut up now :)

While its true that getting 1080p playback to work with the older chipset graphics was a pain, i can say with certainty that this isnt a problem for even the lowest-end APU systems (Im talking E-series, not even A-series) so its good they've fixed that. I personally use an A8 APU in my bigger HTPC system and it purrs through uncompressed 40gb raw bluray rips with ease, even when adding post-processing.

I'm glad people buy AMD systems because I buy all the parts they tire of (sometimes very quickly) for 1/2 what they cost new and I still end up with very strong systems. 80%+ people out there hardly ever fully tax an AMD system, never mind that super-duper Intel system that they needed to buy for the most bestest benchmark scores.

Wow this thread has gone a long way since my first look at it. Here's my 2cents.

I actual can see this argument from all sides. The bottom line is that AMD CPU do perform well enough for 95% of people and they would never know the difference. They also perform very well in threaded apps that can't take advantage of hyperthreading. The other side of the coin is that intel has a CPU that generally offers higher fps in games (whether you would notice the difference or not has a lot of other factors riding on it), is faster in lighter threaded apps and those that can take advantage of hyperthreading. While I have always had AMD in my desktop rigs I would not if rebuilding now because of my lack of using heavily threaded apps, and the undebatable power usage advantage that intel is currently holding. IMO the best CPU amd had was the phenom II x6 and I wish I grabbed one while they were dirt cheap. If only they would have just done a die shrink of it and tweaked it slightly. While more and more threads may become the dominate force in the future it generally is not for the time-being.

The other area of argument is for integrated graphics...the FX to intel, and the APU to intel arguments need to be kept separate. I don't think anyone would argue that AMD have the best integrated at this point in time. If I was building an HTPC/low demand gaming rig (with no intentions of going to dedicated graphics) I would go for a 65w/100w (respectively) AMD APU. The small loss in cpu performance in some areas would not hinder my decision at all. However, if I was going to use dedicated graphics I would again shift to intel for the same reasons as I previously mentioned.

The last point is cost. While I can say I pick x over y, or vice-versa....a great sale or terrific used price will sway most people to overlook shortcomings.

I have always used an Intel in the last 5 years or so. Earlier this year, I tried a 1055T and a fx 6100, and to be honest the performance for both of them in gaming didnt come close to my older Q9550 clocked at 4.0ghz. 1055T was clocked at 4.0 and fx-6100 was clocked at 4.4ghz.

If you want to throw your money away and live with. "only good enough" then sure go with AMD otherwise, pay the extra few bucks and don't have any regrets and what if's.

I've never really been into AMD much sadly. I've given them chances, purchased a couple of builds for 3400+ AMD 64's way back. Then a 6200 build for a friend of mine (although I did try to convince them it wasn't the best choice). To me they've always just been subpar. Reading that article you posted Whipp definitely doesn't help persuade me to give them another chance in the future. I'd like to see them succeed and bring something great to the table for us but it seems like they're nearly always behind.

I've owned only a few AMD cpu's in my time: 9600 phenoom, a 965 PII, FX-6100 BD, opteron 6128's and an e-350 APU in a lappy. Other than the BD, my experience overall was pretty good.

If you do tasks that can take advantage of high core count opterons or even BD chips then AMD offerings can be very appealing compared to intel.

Secondly, I think the APU's are great. If they can get the single threaded performance up a bit on those to rival the lower end i5's then they would make a great little budget game box coupled with a discrete gpu for xfire.

I didn't have a good experience with the FX-6100, but I would still consider going AMD again I think. You still get a better bang for your buck if you are buying AMD for a gamer build in all honesty.

Well he has a point, Intel has been holding back innovation ever since we moved on from LGA 775. Look at X48, X58 vs all the chipsets on 1156/1155. Limited PCI lanes, memory controllers that shares bandwidth with the PCI bus. Design wise Sandy and Ivy (as well as the chipsets that go along with them P67, Z77 ect.) are designed to cost as little as possible while only giving us the bare minimum to still perform well.

I think the most obvious example is people who have issues with microstudder. P67 and Z77 share practically everything off the PCI bus, and that includes the ram memory. Now bandwidth is not the problem, the problem is that this increases latency. There was a blog I read that went into detail about this whole problem, but I can't find it right now. Point is that I don't remember anyone complaining about microstudder back in the LGA 775 days, nor have I heard of anyone with an X79 build complain about microstudder.

Intel also obviously limits us by forcing us to buy 'K" series chips, and this ties in with the BCLK limitations. Otherwise we would still be able to overclock non "k" processors by simply adjusting the base clock (like we did with LGA775 and how we overclock i7 3820 cpu's). Yes they are great CPU's, but objectively speaking the whole platform is designed to milk as much money as possible from the average gamer. Intel seems to have a great architecture right now, I just hope that we all remember this 5 years down the line when AMD catches up.

I have been a big AMD fanboy from Athlon Xp 2500+ days. Today, I have no AMD products other than a server that I'm working on. Why is that? Intel products are better in performance and they have better integrations from CPU, Chipset, SSD and even down to NIC. The AMD server is used because of the value of multi-core Opetron brings but again, it's not a significantly better bang for buck either.

Business Wise - Intel is doing the right thing by milking on superior product that delivers better performance per dollar and per watt (non-GPU related performance.) From Pentium G8xx series to Xeon E5 series, they've successfully taken over market share and put Intel branded products in people's mind. When I talk about computer hardware to my friends, who aren't as technology literate, they start talking about i3, i5 and i7. I rarely hear them talk about AMD FX series, Bulldozer, Fusion, APU or Zacate. AMD haven't streamlined their branding and confusing the general users, where it really matters. We, technology literate might be an important chunk of business being the influencer but really, manufacturers need to make money and they make money from average users. There are too many branding for AMD, they need to start killing brands if they have no intention of maintaining it like Phenom and Athlon. What's the point of these brands if they want to push out Bulldozer and Ax series? All their marketing efforts are spent on those CPUs anyway so kill off products that don't belong or fit them into new branding.

Technology Wise: Unfortunately due to lacklustre products manufactured by AMD, Intel can relax and take a nap on technology innovation. It's not true, they have maintained tick-tock cycle they had on going after the epic fail of NetBurst. Their product may lack true innovation taking a leap and beyond AMD to the point AMD can no longer compete. Intel has brought enough innovation whether to improve their ends or improve performance and we've seen their tick-tock cycle to work extremely well. They may have 'micro-studder' or latency issues but those are minor things to average users. Most users will look at the product and say, can it run xxx? and what CPU does this have? Intel i5?

AMD's current products are not outstanding and as someone who goes around various technology forums and read benchmarks all day, it's a shitty product. For average Joe's, it might be acceptable product as value oriented. Value oriented products are not where it generates ton of revenue, it only drives volume. It needs to come up with better marketing plan especially the branding if they can't come up with better performance products. I sincerely hope AMD does well because I really liked their products even though my current setup consists of 99% Intel.

For me, it's a question of what you intend to do with the pc. If you are after nothing more than an HTPC box where the most taxing task is smooth video playback, then I believe that going with an AMD offering would be your best choice. If you are after max fps in new games, then intel is the better choice for you.